Why?
by wild-angel82
Summary: Lorelai asks Luke questions that I'm sure many of us were asking while watching episode 7.02.


**Summary:** Lorelai asks Luke questions that I'm sure many of us were asking while watching episode 7.02.  
**Spoilers: **Up to 7.02.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything.  
**A/N: **This is my first ever L&L fanfiction and with so many great L&L stories around, I wasn't even sure if I was going to post it, but since I wrote it, I finally I decided to go ahead and share it. It's just something that I had to get out of my system afer watching that episode. Please let me know what you think!

Lorelai felt Rory's comforting touch on her shoulders and the taste of the ice cream she'd been eating still lingered in her mouth. Normally, her, Rory and ice cream would have been one of her dream ways of spending an evening. However not tonight. Tonight all she could think about was Luke's words that she heard a couple of hours before. _It's not your fault, it's not my fault, it's just we're not right together, you know? You're you, I'm me, I just wanna stop pretending we're something else. _How could he say those things after all those years, after everything they have been through? Not right together? This has got to be some kind of cruel joke! _You don't belong with me. You belong with someone like Christopher._ Every time he replayed him saying that to her, she felt like she was losing one more piece of her heart. _You just go back to being Lorelai Gilmore, and I'll go back to being the guy in the diner that pours your coffee_. She couldn't believe the ease at which those words came out of his mouth. Did he really think that this was going to happen like that? That she was going to forget the last 2 years and just be the Lorelai Gilmore who never dated Luke Danes. The Lorelai Gilmore who was never engaged to Luke Danes... The Lorelai Gilmore who didn't love Luke Danes...

"How can it be so easy for him?" she suddenly asked through tears.

"What?" as much as Rory was trying, she was not able to tell what exactly her mother was talking about at that particular moment.

"Going back to normal. Acting like nothing ever happened between us." she said very softly really, but with anger piling up inside her. "How could he just stand there and look me in the eye and tell me that he's over it? That he's moved on! I don't understand Rory! Why doesn't it bother him? Why isn't he mad at me for sleeping with Christopher? Why won't he just yell at me, tell me I ruined everything? Or beg my forgiveness because it's all his fault? Why is he acting like he doesn't even care?"

Rory prayed to God that she knew the answers to those questions, but she didn't. It broke her heart to see her mother like this. She wished desperately that she could come up with something to say or do that will make it all better, but on the other hand she knew that there was no use. There was nothing that was going to ease the pain. The hurt ran too deep for her to fix it. If there was anyone who was going to fix it, it had to be her mom and Luke.

"I don't know, mom." she whispered as she held Lorelai closer. It was the least she could do right now and she hoped it helped just a bit.

"I need to know Rory." Lorelai suddenly rose up from the couch, as if a new wave of energy ran through her. "I need to know." she repeated as she stood up and headed towards the door.

"Mom!" Rory tried to call after her, but Lorelai put on her shoes and ran out of the house. "Oh boy..." Rory sighed, as she wasn't sure if Lorelai was doing the right thing. But then again, if it was something that she had to do, Rory knew that there was no force in the world that would ever stop her.

Lorelai felt like a total lunatic running through the streets of Stars Hollow in her sweats and shoes that she didn't really know matched. On one level she was aware of how ridiculous she must look and what people might think, but on the other, the only thing she could focus on one thing only, and that was getting to Luke's diner as fast as she could.

When she finally got there, she saw some construction going and had stop and think for a second before she remembered Rory telling her about Kirk crashing Taylor's car into the diner. After that she didn't really take too much time before she started banging on the door. For a second she thought that maybe she could have gotten inside through that big whole, or that maybe she still had the key to the diner and to the apartment. But figuring all that out seemed like such unnecessary delay.

When the initial round of banging ended and nothing happened, she made the bangs louder and even started calling Luke. She didn't care what time of the night it was, or that everyone who would see her would think she was crazy, she just needed to talk to Luke and ask why.

"What the hell..." she heard his grumpy voice from inside the diner. "Don't you people have better things to do than..." he didn't manage to finish the sentence as he saw Lorelai throwing her fists onto the door in panic. For a second he even got scare she was going to hurt herself. She opened the door immediately and that finally stopped her from banging on it.

"Lorelai?" he asked very confused, trying to figure out whether it was just a dream or it was really happening. Seeing Lorelai at the diner in the middle of the night was not really anything new, but of course this time it was different. "What are you doing here?" he asked the question he would always ask when he saw her at his doorstep at this hour in the night.

"Why, Luke, why?" she asked desperately, expecting him to understand exactly what she was asking. But the answer she so longed for never came. Instead came Luke's confused look on his face as he was trying really hard to figure out what she meant.

"Why don't you care? Why aren't you just the tiniest bit sad about all this?" she started shooting questions at him, questions that had been burning her up inside ever since she heard him say he was over it. "Why do you see me on the street and act like nothing happened between us? Why aren't you avoiding Doose's because you are afraid you are going to run into me? Why aren't you mad at me? Or yourself? Why aren't you... anything? Why are you acting like your normal self? Like everything was fine? Why?"

She stopped for a little while to take a deeper breath. That gave her a chance to study an expression on his face for a moment. She wanted to know. She needed to know the answers to these questions. She looked into his eyes, but the answers weren't there. She waited and waited for him to say something, but he just kept looking at her, struggling desperately with something. If only she could know what it was. Was he going to tell her to get over it again? To move on? To come back to being Lorelai Gilmore? She didn't want to hear it, she didn't want to have to listen to those words again, so she continued bombarding him with questions that have been running inside her head for a while.

"Why is this not killing you? Why is this not tearing you up inside?" she almost screamed, as she felt that she was no longer able to keep her emotions inside. "Is it because you don't love me? I know I hurt you Luke, but we've been together for two years! Doesn't that mean anything to you? That's not how people who broke up after two years act! That's not how people who were supposed to get married act when they break up! No!" she took another deep breath. "They cry and scream and run around the town in the middle of the night with their hair uncombed. That's what they do! They wallow and hurt and wish they could turn back the time to undo what they did wrong! That is what I am doing! Why aren't you doing the same? Why aren't you acting like you were in this relationship with me? Why aren't you going around the town feeling like nothing's ever going to be right again? Like all the joys of the world are suddenly gone because we're no longer together? Why aren't you feeling what I'm feeling? Why don't you feel like it's the end of the world? Because I do! Why do you not even care if we're together or not?" she uttered this question with the last possible shred of strength that was left within her. She had no more questions. She had no more strength. She said everything she wanted to say, asked everything she wanted to ask. Now was the time for him to respond.

Luke studied Lorelai's face intensly, waiting for another round of heart-breaking questions, but they never came. He knew it was it. It was time for him to say something. He looked at her puffy eyes and the tears that she so desperately tried to hide. He had two choices. He could either tell her to go back home and get some rest, which would ultimately make her sure that he indeed didn't care one bit about her or...

Lorelai continued sobbing a little as she waited for Luke to say something. But the longer she waited for him to respond, the more certain she was that she just made a total fool of herself and that she would never be able to show his face in a 100-feet radius from Luke.

"OK then." she whispered after a while of heart-breaking silence. "I guess I will just go back to being Lorelai Gilmore and you go back to being the guy that serves me coffee." she whispered through tears as she took one last deep breath. She was done and his silence was clearer than words.

She turned around and slowly started walking away. She shouldn't have come here, she should have known by the way he acted earlier...

"You wanna know why?" she suddenly heard him from afar. He sounded and looked almost angry when she turned around and looked back at him. He walked up to her and gazed at her the way she had never seen him do before.

"Yes I do!" she cried. No matter how much it was going to hurt, no matter how stupid she would feel afterwards, she wanted to know. She wanted to hear it from him.

"You wanna know why I act like nothing ever happened between us! You wanna know why I see you in the street and tell you I'm over you! You wanna know why I'm not running around the streets in the middle of the night!"

"Luke..." she tried to say something, but she didn't even know why. Was she trying to stop him or was she trying to really say something?

"Well then I'll tell you why! I'll tell you exactly why! Because this is the only way I'm ever going to survive this! Pretending I've moved on is the only way that can stop me from going crazy! Because if I did let myself feel what I'm really feeling inside and acted on it, I'd have to tear this whole damn town apart! I'd have to punch every happy guy in the face and make a sarcastic comment to every happy couple that I see! I'd have to get rid of every single thing that reminds me of you and that is basically everything that I own. And I'd have to move, because seeing you and knowing that you're not with me would just kill me. Not to mention seeing you with..." he took one deep breath as she noticed the anger and hurt in his eyes. "And you know why I'm not mad because you slept with Chris? Because if I really really let myself be as mad as I am deep inside, I'd have to do more than just punch him in the face. I'd end up killing the bastard, which would ultimately not be good for anyone, not even for me, although it would make me feel better for a while. So yeah, that is why I am the way that I am after all this. So don't come here and talk to me about hurt and pain and wallowing. You're not the one who has to go to sleep and try to erase the image of the person that you love having sex with someone else!"

"I..." she tried to say something, something that would make him stop being angry and so hurt, but really there was nothing she could think of.

"And you're not the one who wishes he wasn't stupid enough to let the best thing that's ever happened to him walk away! If I could turn the damn time, I would! I would give every damn thing I own to turn back the time, to make everything right. But I can't! So don't tell me you're the only one who's hurting and wishing this whole damn mess would just go away! And don't you dare tell me that I don't love you!"

With those words, Lorelai really felt like something really bad was going to happen to the town just because Luke started feeling the way she felt. But she knew why now. She knew, but it didn't make it any easier. The teras didn't stop falling. Seeing Luke and not being able to get lost in his arms was not any less painful.

For a couple of seconds they just stared at each other, trying to come up with something to say, or trying to decide whether words were really necessary at this point. They both felt like they had said everything there was to say. All the hurt abd doubts and fears were right there in the open. There was nothing left to do or to say. Nothing that could make this moment any less or more heartbreaking. For now, it was all they could afford to say. It was all they needed to hear too.

Luke turned around and slowly went into the diner, having sent Lorelai one last glance. She stood there, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the streets, with all those answers that Luke had just given her. She was still crying as the emotions she felt were too much for her to handle. But no matter how much her heart was breaking now, somehow, deep inside she was glad. Because he was mad and he was hurting, and as crazy as it may sound, despite everything that had happened, somehow that was a good sign.

THE END

**A/N:** Well, that was it... What did you guys think?


End file.
